If it is true that we can organize many different activities in an event, it is never easy to choose the best option to motivate and involve the attendees. Nor is it easy to know what really works and surprises or when is the best time to start thinking about it.
Surely, before starting, we should ask ourselves what is the objective of our event and what we want to achieve with our activities. We should also not forget that these are people, who are not always willing to read or listen, so we must keep the level of communication and simplicity of the proposals very high.
For this reason we wanted to provide several examples of experiences that can serve as inspiration to design your next event, congress or conference. So without further ado, I leave you with my TOP 5 activities that I have seen done in an event.
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1) Find your professional better half. Networking Games.
At some point we have all played the game of characters or half oranges in which some have the name of a famous person and others the description of this.
If you use it as an experience in an event or congress, you can break the ice and connect attendees in a more fun way. Involve attendees in the game by offering a reward for those who manage to meet. Free beer, for example.
PRO TIP: If you add the networking module in the event app, use the description section of each person to place the dynamic. When looking for your better half, they will dig through the profiles of other attendees and maybe they will find surprises.
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UPGRADE VIRTUAL EVENTS
In the Meetmaps platform there is the option to carry out 1to1 Meetings among attendees, the best option to find the perfect match and establish quality relationships for future business.
In addition, this option allows you to plan your meetings in advance so that on the day of the event you have an organized calendar with all the meetings closed in your personalized agenda.
There is also the option of creating virtual rooms for workshops: videoconferences to hold workshops with a small group of attendees, discuss specific topics and exchange ideas live between professionals and experts from any sector.
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2) Active presentations. Q&A and debates.
Increasingly, attendees demand protagonism and more real experiences where they are allowed to interact with the presentations or workshops we organize. Activating attendees will allow us to generate more memorable and dynamic experiences for our event.
The event app can offer us many tools to achieve this. Open the question time and indicate that they can ask questions from their cell phone with the module “questions to the speaker”, this will allow us to obtain and moderate questions from the audience in a more dynamic way.
PRO TIP: Open a thematic channel within the app so that attendees can generate debate around the discussion and extend the event for more days.
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UPGRADE VIRTUAL EVENTS
Without straying too far from reality you can use these features of direct interaction with the speaker of the conference or presentation through live chat, questions to the speaker or voting.
These functionalities are key to use in congresses and virtual events, since the participants will be able to ask questions and vote freely to the expert through their cell phones.
PRO TIP: Open a thematic channel within the web so that attendees can generate debate around the discussion and extend the event for more days.
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3) Gamification with prizes and codes directly to the cell phone.
We can easily organize gamification activities around our event. With a little imagination we can achieve amazing experiences that link our attendees, speakers and sponsors.
If your partners offer discount codes, take advantage of them and specify them in the app. Program the time you want each promo to be activated or the time it is available to keep it more gamified.
You can also take advantage of the immediacy and surprise generated by push notifications. You only need to invoke the phrase: “Our “partner xxx” invites us to a free coffee!” to motivate attendees.
PRO TIP: You will increase the response rate of the satisfaction survey if you communicate that by answering it they will be entered into a sweepstakes.
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UPGRADE VIRTUAL EVENTS
Even if it is not a physical event, gamification is possible!
Through the Meetmaps platform for events, there is the possibility of motivating the attendee either through live games, magic performances, and spaces dedicated to each participant to do their bit, virtual scape rooms, rankings or quizzes (through the app), photo contest through the photo gallery, phrase bingo, among many other activities.
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4) Last minute activities – sign up and let’s go!
“News! We have 10 free tickets to a MasterCheff workshop.”
Clearly this won’t be the most thoughtful strategy ever but if there’s one thing about events, it’s that everything happens live. And sometimes live brings surprises and opportunities that happen in less than the time it takes to launch our rocket.
“We were in the middle of the last day of the event and everything was going perfect, almost finished, when suddenly one of the attendees in the middle of a session tells us that if we want we have 20 tickets to do a session with a top chef from Barcelona.”
The magic ingredient that will allow you to communicate this successfully is push notifications.
PRO TIP: Organize attendees using the event staff contact options offered from the app.
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UPGRADE VIRTUAL EVENTS
As if we were in a face-to-face event, we can do the same strategy but from the screen. Invite attendees to participate in last minute activities, they won’t have to travel!
Simply send a message through the app’s push notifications or write it down in the agenda, and by clicking on the stage indicated by the organization, a live raffle or prize-giving can take place.
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5) Create a photo contest
Sharing photos on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter is part of our current social nature so we can also make it a viral and very cool activity for our event.
To perform this type of activity we will have to use apps that have the photo gallery module with moderator. At three different levels we can create this activity from less to more complex.
a. Photo sharing: Simply enable the photo gallery for attendees to share their photos of the event.
b. Photo contest: Based on the previous one, in this case we will have to enable likes and comments on the photos. Whoever has the most likes will win a prize from the sponsors.
c. Photographic experience: Associate the gallery to a team activity. For example, if you do a team-building in Seville, the teams must upload a photo with 5 different monuments of your choice. The team that succeeds first wins a prize.
PRO TIP: If your event’s app allows you to link personal social networks, you can encourage attendees to share their photos with their friends and followers when they take them.
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UPGRADE VIRTUAL EVENTS
Although you may think that this option may be difficult, the platform offers the option to upload photos to the photo gallery. Even if it is a photo of your personal altar at home, you can share your experience with other users. In this space you can put a “like” or a comment, as well as organize a contest through social networks.
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Create experiences at your event with Meetmaps
From Meetmaps, as a platform to create apps and experiences for events, congresses or conferences, we put our modules and customization options available to your ideas.
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